Hall v. Durham

• Decision Date: 27 January 1887
• Citation: 109 Ind. 434,9 N.E. 926
• Parties: Hall and Wife v. Durham.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

109 Ind. 434

9 N.E. 926

Hall and Wife

v.Durham.¹

Supreme Court of Indiana.

January 27, 1887.

Appeal from circuit court, Montgomery county.

Ballard & Clodfelter, for appellants. J. R. Courtney, for appellee.

Niblack, J.

Some time previous to the September term, 1884, of the Montgomery circuit court, William H. Durham, the appellee in this case, commenced an action in that court against John R. Hall and Margery Hall, the appellants in this appeal, to quiet his title to a tract of land in Montgomery county. At the term of court above named the defendants in that action failed to appear, and, it being shown that summons had been served upon them more than 10 days before the first day of the term, a judgment quieting the plaintiff's title to the land described in his complaint was entered against the defendants as upon default. In March, 1885, this action, which was for the recovery of the possession of the tract of land to which the title had been quieted as above stated, was commenced by Durham against the same defendants, and a trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of Durham.

At the trial Durham offered in evidence the complaint and judgment in the action prosecuted by him as above, to quiet his title, but the defendants objected- First, upon the ground that the complaint was not sufficient to support such a judgment; second, that the judgment had been changed in a material respect after it was first entered, without their knowledge or consent.

The court heard evidence in regard to the alleged change in the judgment, and, evidently coming to the conclusion that, if any change was made in the judgment after it was first entered by the clerk, it was before it was signed by the judge, admitted both the complaint and judgment in evidence. The reasonable inference from the evidence which the court heard was that the judgment so read in evidence was entered upon the proper order-book of the Montgomery circuit court, that it appeared to have been entered in the usual course of proceeding, and was signed by the proper judge. Under such circumstances, the objection to the reading of the judgment in evidence was mere collateral attack on the validity of the judgment, as between the parties, which was regular on its face, and of a class which the court had jurisdiction to render. Such an attack was not permissible, and hence the court did not err in admitting the judgment in evidence. As to the sufficiency of a complaint to quiet title, see the case of Kitts v. Willson, 106 Ind. 147; S. C. 5 N. E. Rep....